About That Obama "Rough Patch" — A Modest Proposal

Seriously, let's not cover The Presidential Campaign at all until the tribes start gathering in Tampa for the 2012 Republican National Convention. Let's write nothing. Let's say nothing. Let's all go cover minor-league baseball, or Lollapalooza, or what I am sure is going to be a full mid-summer of Eek! Sharks! news. But we agree not to return any phone calls from operatives, candidate fluffers, or cable-TV bookers until the gavel falls in Florida. I suggest this because, right now, as the entire news industry scrambles to cover the Absolutely Nothing that is going on in the race, we all look like a bunch of goats trying to ice-skate.

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Exhibit A is a piece that is getting plenty of "buzz" today. I know it's getting plenty of "buzz" today because, on my man Chuck Todd's show this morning on liberal MSNBC, substitute host and legacy-hire Luke Russert was positively a'giggle about it. Democrats Panic! President Doomed! Oh, noes!

Now, as it happens, I know Karen Tumulty a little, and she's always been nothing but nice to me. However, she and her editors have got to be kidding here. Eight "prominent Democratic strategists" — none of whom deigned to be identified — have determined that the president's campaign is, in the immortal words of Lili Von Shtupp, the Teutonic Titwillow: Fertig, Verfallen, Verlumpt, Verblunget, Verkackt! And in June, too, and even though, the last time I checked, he was still running against a truly remarkable liar possessed of all the glowing personal charisma of a proctological procedure. There is one thing we can conclude from this story: There are at least eight "prominent Democratic strategists" who haven't yet gotten a phone call from the president's campaign.

The rest of the analysis has far more trouble with a coherent message than the president's campaign does. It insists that the Carville/Greenberg poll released yesterday demonstrates that the It's-Getting-Better message isn't working too well, which is probably true, because it's a stupid message when eight percent unemployment is the new normal. But, then, it goes on to say this:

When his campaign ran an ad criticizing the Republican's methods as a corporate turnaround artist - with one laid-off worker describing him as "a vampire" — Newark Mayor Cory Booker described it as "nauseating" and former Pennsylvania governor Edward G. Rendell called it "disappointing." And when the campaign pivoted to an attack on Romney's record as Massachusetts governor, Obama strategist David Axelrod held a news conference in Boston, only to be drowned out by pro-Romney supporters.

As to the latter point, so what? A bunch of hecklers show up and shout louder than the speaker, and that means the message is bad? Want to see me destroy institutional Roman Catholicism by singing Free's "All Right Now" through a bullhorn at high Mass? The Democracy Corps poll in question showed one thing quite clearly: that, in places like Ohio, the attacks on Romney's days at Bain Capital were working with exactly the voters the president needs to have this November. If this piece made the case — or, if one of the eight anonymous dwarves did — that the campaign should have ignored rootin'-tootin' man's man Ed Rendell, and red-hot careerist Cory Booker, and continued to hammer Romney for the vulture capitalist than Rick Perry and I believe he is, then there would have been some value to the analysis. Here, though, it's just another unanchored example of the campaign's flailing about. When you have to write about something when nothing's happening, this is the kind of thing you get, so let's all just go to the goddamn beach.

And if we take the next two months off, nobody has to quote Mark McKinnon any more, which is a very good thing. And, anyway, I'm tired. Is that a ten-gallon hat, or are you just enjoying the show?